The invention relates to a butt joint for panels and/or sections employing a connecting element. The invention relates, furthermore, to the use of the butt joint.
Panels and/or sections are for example employed in vehicle bodies, cladding, parapets, doors and for similar building or vehicle oriented purposes. For butt joints on large area units, strips or other connecting elements are placed on the outer surfaces thereof, for example, correcting elements made of metal, plastic or wood The connecting elements in each case cover over, at least in part, the edges of two panels or sections and are usually bolted or adhesively bonded to these. The term panels as used in the instant specification means and in the following, monolithic panels such as wooden planks and multi-layer laminate panels, in particular large area panels having outer metallic layers bonded to a core layer, also sections, extruded sections, in particular of aluminum or an aluminum alloy, injection molded sections and composite sections.
Although such butt joints can be made mechanically very stable and satisfactory as far as load-bearing is concerned, they suffer the significant disadvantage that they do not enable one to obtain these large uniform areas of at least two panels or sections without a stepped transition. The butt-joint is always emphasized and obvious to the naked eye. It is therefore not possible to provide a surface of uniform appearance for example by filling-in and painting-over the transition between panels or sections. Such uniform surfaces are, however, increasingly demanded by constructors. In view of the above, the objective of the present invention is to provide butt joint of the type discussed hereinabove such that the joint between two abutting panels and/or sections is not visually emphasized, and the said panels and/or sections are usable, if desired after subsequent treatment for example by filling and painting, to create a uniform surface on at least one side without unattractive interruption by strips or other external connecting aids.